How to Juice without a Juicer

The benefits of juice are manifold. It's amazing stuff! If you want to try some juice, but don't have a juicer, there's no problem. Here's how:

You'll need a blender, a large mixing bowl and a cloth to strain liquid through. I use a nut milk bag, but you could use a large piece of muslin…or this morning the idea of using a (very) clean pair of tights popped into my head – I'm sure it would work, let me know if you try it!

It's better if you base the juice on fruit and vegetables that are water-rich, for example cucumber, pear and pineapple. Once you've started with one of these you can then add firmer produce, such as celery or fennel, and greens, such as lettuce or spinach. The more high-powered your blender the less water-rich produce you'll need to use.

I tried this today with cucumber, lime, apple, ginger and spinach.

Chop up the most water-rich ingredient you have (for me the lime and cucumber), put it in the blender and blend until it is a liquid.

Add the remaining ingredients in order of water content with the highest first (I did apple and ginger and then finally the spinach) blending each time you have good amount of chopped produce in the jug. Continue until all the fruit and veg are well-combined and you have a thick liquid.

Put the nut milk bag, muslin (or tights!) over the mixing bowl and secure them well around the edge using something like an elastic band.

Pour the liquid from the blender into the straining material. Gather up the sides of cloth and pull them together so that you have a 'bag' of the liquid. Then, using your hands, gently squeeze the liquid inside the bag over the mixing bowl – the juice will gradually flow through the holes in the cloth into the bowl. Be patient, depending on how much you have made this process could take 5 or so minutes.

You'll be left with the dry pulp of the produce inside the cloth, empty this into your composter or bin…go back to the mixing bowl and pour the juice into a jug.

6 responses to “How to Juice without a Juicer”

Great post, i am going to try this with a hand blender??, i hate cleaning my bulky, plastic juicer, and i shall feel much more inclined to use the pulp in things if it has been strained thru some muslin -thanks!

Mercedes, I’ve just tried it with a flour sieve (as it was all I had!) and Alison is right. You get some of the pulp out but some does make it through and the juice is quite thick. I’m off to buy some muslin and see what happens. I have also been wondering about a piping bag with a muslin plug…